


The Heretic

by CricketJames



Category: Outlander & Related Fandoms, Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-08
Updated: 2016-09-07
Packaged: 2018-08-13 19:34:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7983589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CricketJames/pseuds/CricketJames
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He was a man with a gift. Time had thwarted him again and again, mistakes had been made, lives had been changed, the course of history forever altered. Did he get it right this time? There can be no gaps, no weak links in the chain of time. Life must right itself and no mere mortal can alter the hand of the Almighty entirely - but one might be able to nudge it in the 'right' direction from time to time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Heretic

**Author's Note:**

> In my frustration over knowing so very, very much about Jamie's past and so very, very little about Claire's, this monster of a work of fan fiction was born. I bounced the idea off of anyone who would listen, and took pages upon pages of notes of "brain dump" ideas. I'm a slow writer, this thing is an absolute monster, so be patient with me. 
> 
> Many thanks to Sherri and Smalls for their proof reading/beta-ing and all my ladies. You know who you are. Feedback is welcome and much appreciated!

* * *

_The blanket draped over the side of the pram was blue. If he had been, at any point in his long and somewhat tortured existence, a humorous man, he would have found it amusing. As it was, he was in no laughing mood and was more annoyed by itch of the material of his trousers than the color of the blanket._

_The child inside the pram had to be a female child, did it not? Is that not what history – or rather he – had dictated up until this point? He was reluctant to interact with mother, father, or child for that matter, for fear of allowing even an infinitesimal hint that would lead to the realization that perhaps Herbert Floyd was not who he claimed to be._

_It was a miracle there was a child at all. His intervention had been necessary multiple times over the course of the woman’s pregnancy. The influenza epidemic had been real and disastrous. He had feared he would have to go back to begin again – a task that he had done twice to date and had enjoyed on neither occasion. Through observing the mother in her daily activities, and one prolonged contact outside of the butcher shop when he had helped her down the steps with one hand on her arm had ensured the disease had missed her, and her unborn child. The husband had merely been lucky._

_The gift ensured the ability, not protection – and certainly not protection of those in close contact either emotionally or physically – of that much he was now sure._

_The doctors had found it a marvel that such a young woman who clearly took no real precaution in her day-to-day activities had avoided influenza. Add in that the mother in question had been driven to bed rest for weeks following bleeding and it was astounding there was a child to cause him such headache. In that particular scenario he had been of no assistance at all. It stood as testament to the tenacity and strength of the mother and presumed female child that the birth had been, to his knowledge, uneventful. Unknown by the family, he had been unable to get close enough to the mother to project to protect her and the child once she had taken to bed – never mind the hospital._

_“It MUST be female,” he willed to himself, causing the elderly woman sitting a few feet away from him on a bench feeding pigeons to cast a sidelong look in his direction. He tipped his hat to her and struck a quick pace down the block to another, unoccupied bench to rest._

_The street itself was unassuming, modest brick row houses standing sentry barring admittance to anyone unscrupulous or unwanted. Here and there the street was dotted with neatly trimmed shrubbery and the occasional pop of color from primrose and poppies nestled in front garden beds and window boxes. Neatly swept sidewalks lead to short staircases and green painted front doors with double locks and leaded glass._

_The home the couple had disappeared into, pram and all, was slightly set apart from its neighbors in the bright window boxes outside the parlor windows – a set of blue and a set of purple. From this distance the purple made itself known as pansies, bright white faces pointed toward the waning light, but he puzzled over the blue. Hydrangea? Surely not in a window box, he mused. Forget me nots? Or perhaps they weren’t blue at all, but were pale violets and his eyes were playing tricks on him. His eyes had been sharp for the better part of two hundred years – tricks they did not play. Herbert Floyd had just made the decision to investigate the flowers – of all things – when the door to the house opened and the man appeared, jostling change in his pocket, whistling brightly, and looking for all as if he were the luckiest man in the world._

 

* * *

  


        Nine days old and still no name to report to the local registrar. Admittedly, they had plenty of time to decide, but she could only imagine the lasting repercussion of calling the child “lovie” for the next year.

        Lips pursed, she studied the child sprawled across her lap. The swaddling had come unwound and the child stretched spread eagle. The tiny body clad only in nappy and tiny socks gave her the perfect opportunity to examine it at length without causing undue interruption or annoyance.

        Born with the most shockingly thick head of hair, it had thinned a little in the days since birth, the deep chestnut already curling at the nape of the child’s neck and in one almost comical swoop across the tiny forehead. A tiny rosebud mouth, equally tiny button nose, fat, kissable cheeks and thighs, and – when they were open – big eyes that were already beginning to turn.

        “She’ll have your eyes,” Henry had mused, studying the child mere hours after birth. Of course, like most babies, she had arrived with blue eyes. There was no way he could have known, but secretly she was happy they were turning away from blue to her more tawny brown. The child was a carbon copy of Henry, curly dark hair and all – she would happily lay claim to her eyes.

        The front door closed and she heard the lock slid into place, signaling the arrival of her husband while simultaneously keeping the outside world at bay. She relaxed a little. The child was healthy, but she still felt overly cautious with the cold October weather and the ravages of disease still sweeping parts of the country. One could never be to cautious, she mused as she wrapped the sleeping babe back in the blanket.

        The blanket had been a gift from Henry’s brother, a rather commonplace gift from such an eccentric character, who had been convinced the child was a boy and had sent not only a blue blanket but also a blue rattle and cricket set as well. Julia had known otherwise. Call it mother’s intuition, but she had felt from the time she knew she was with child that they would have a daughter. In time there would possibly possibly a son, but this child would be a girl.

        Despite having “known” for months that the child would be a girl, they still had no name. Had she defied all expectations – except Lamb’s – and been a boy, they had landed on Lawrence Henry. Now, however, they were stuck.

        “And how are my girls?” Henry asked, breezing into the parlor and dropping a kiss into her hair and on the small forehead of the sleeping child.

        “Just fine,” she said with a smile, patting the cloth covered bum as the baby slept against her shoulder. “We’ve not even changed position since you left for the market an hour ago.”

        “Good,” he retorted from the vicinity of the kitchen, “you shouldn’t over exert yourself. No need for my girls to work themselves too hard.”

        She heard him closing cabinets as he put away the few things she had sent him out to buy and begin clattering about setting the kettle to boil. Their home was small, just two bedrooms, but perfect for their tiny family. It had felt big when it had just been the two of them, but now it felt just right.

        “Henry?” she called, bringing him scuttling back into the parlor, drying his hands on a towel. She patted the seat next to her, “Sit, please. Relax a moment.”

        He smiled and her knees went slightly weak despite her seated position. His smile had been what drew her to him in the first place, bright and honest. He wasn’t shy with his smiles like some men, nor was he shy with his emotions. She could read him like a book, and enjoyed that. The men – nay, boys – she had gone with before Henry had been so closed off, emotionally distant, but not her Henry. He’d cried when he’d first held their child, and hadn’t hid those tears from her perched on the side of their bed. She thought she had been woozy from post-birth exhaustion, but when she’d asked him later he’d admitted it fully.

        He reached for the child and she passed her to him willingly. He laid her full length on his forearms, hands cupping the small dark head as her feet tickled at his elbows. Julia’s head rested on his shoulder as she reached out and played with a tiny hand that had wormed its way out of the swaddling.

        “She needs a name,” she said softly as the tiny fingers wrapped around her own in reflex.

        “I suppose she does,” he agreed, resting his cheek against her hair, “the registrar’s office might voice complaint if we tried to legally call her Lovie.”

        “Lovie Elizabeth? No, they likely wouldn’t approve of that.” They had decided to honor Julia’s mother with her middle name, but Henry had been adamant that the poor child not be saddled with Muriel after his own mother. “She’s not a Mary. Or a Sara. Or a Virginia,” Julia mused, all names that had been considered in recent days.

        “No, she isn’t.”

        “Lillian?” That one had been on the short list as well.

        She felt Henry pull a face and smiled, no, she wasn’t a Lillian.

        “I heard a name in a shop yesterday,” Henry started, “it’s French…or at least it sounded French.”

        She quirked an eyebrow at him, pulling back enough to see his face, “Since when do you have a penchant for French names?”

        He smiled and shook his head, “I don’t. But I haven’t been able to shake the name since I heard it. I think it might be good for our little Lovie here - if you agree that is.”

        “Well? Out with it.”

        “Claire.”

        Julia racked her brain, pulling out what French she retained from years ago, rusty and ill-used as it was she couldn’t parse the meaning – but she liked it.

        “Claire. Claire Elizabeth Beauchamp,” she echoed, tracing the baby’s cheek with a finger. The child turned her face into the touch, small cheek dimpling into the ghost of a grin.

        “I think she likes it,” she whispered.

 


End file.
